


Oblivious

by BlackNightSystem



Series: Where Nobody Goes [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Psychosis, Schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:27:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackNightSystem/pseuds/BlackNightSystem
Summary: John Constantine is used to dealing with demons, but when they hit closer to home, he may need some help fighting back.---Or, Constantine has a psychotic episode in the middle of the night and Zari is an amazing girlfriend.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Series: Where Nobody Goes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130459
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, so this is a little (very) out of character especially for Legends of Tomorrow. However, any of you read any Hellblazer comics? I have a bit of an obsession (I highly recommend) and Constantine has been known to run from ghosts or that one time pretty early on when the man literally jumped out of a moving train to avoid the ghosts haunting him. Who knows if the ghosts are actually there most of the time though, but in my story just pretend they were never real.

A loud clattering echoed around the room, waking Zari from her beauty sleep. She sat up ready to fight yet unable to see anything in the pitch-black room. She moved her hand out slightly to grab hold of John, only to find the space empty. “John? John, is that you?" A jolt of fear passed through Zari as she thought through who, or what could be behind the sound. "Gidget, turn on the lights. Dimly,” she requested and after a brief pause, the light in the room gradually grew to a reasonable level for someone who had just woken up. Zari found her boyfriend.

John was kneeling on the floor of the room once belonging to only Zari before they decided to make their relationship official. Glass was shattered into tiny pieces across a puddle of water. The man himself seemed to be frozen in place while he watched nothing with frantic eyes. Zari sighed and left the warmth of their bed to move closer. “John?” she questioned softly. Constantine either hadn’t heard Zari or had taken this moment to ignore her. She picked up a shirt John had left lying on the floor and used it to wipe away as much of the water and glass in front of him as she could before kneeling down. Zari tried calling his name again. Nothing.

“Hey, John. Listen to me now okay? I’m going to put my hand on your right arm now. Is that alright with you?” Zari asked permission out of habit, not expecting any real response. She reached out to her boyfriend and watched as his glazed eyes paused in their desperate movement. He failed to show any other sign of recognition once her hand reached his bare arm. Zari kept her grip strong in an attempt to ground him.

It wasn’t the first time Zari had found her new partner so distant and lost, and it was unlikely to be the last. These ‘episodes’ as she had taken to calling them, had apparently occurred for as long as Constantine could remember; sometimes the world around him became a little too much. The ghosts would watch him from the table over and the cockroaches would scuttle over his feet and up his body to scratch away at his skin. Sometimes he’d get angry, he’d throw things and scream, sometimes he’d drink or cry but on occasion, he would just stop. Before their relationship, Zari had never noticed these moments. The drinking was constant enough to ignore and John had his own house, it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear. Luckily Sara had found John before and knew of his history because without the other woman’s help Zari would have broken the first time she saw John Constantine screaming at someone she couldn’t see.

Zari began brushing one hand along John’s arm while she used her free hand to check for any cuts the glass may have caused him. Finding the man physically unharmed, she allowed herself to breathe again. “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about, right? See, you’re not hurt, John. I won’t let anything hurt you.” Zari continued talking about nothing in particular while keeping her left hand gripping John’s wrist and the other still brushing his arm.

John had been in his state of shock for longer than Zari had seen before. What was only a few minutes felt like an eternity as she watched his eyes trying to take in whatever was around him. “Gidget?” She spoke up at the ceiling to avoid having to look at John’s distant gaze, more than anything.

A voice answered almost immediately, “yes, Miss Tarazi?”

Zari focused her attention back on John as she felt him beginning to shake. “What exactly happened before I woke up?” she questioned.

The AI’s detached tone seemed to convey more emotion than Zari could ever understand as she described the events. “I believe Mr Constantine has yet to sleep, leaving your room around thirty minutes before you awoke. I offered to wake you but he insisted against it.”

“Thank you, Gidget,” she dismissed the AI. Talking to John again, she sighed “I thought we went over this. You’re supposed to wake me up if you can’t sleep. What’s the point in me making a system if you don’t stick to it?” Zari ceased her complaining when she realised the shaking had stopped. John’s body became tense and stiff so she drew her hands back subconsciously. “Hey, John, can you hear me? It’s Zari. Come on, John. Look at me.” Zari moved her hand up to his chin in order to direct his eyes at her own. Before she could follow through with the action, however, the renewed contact elicited sudden movement.

John jerked backwards, kicking out at Zari as he slid back across the floor until his back hit the solid wall. Taken aback with his actions, Zari fell back and kept her position sitting on the floor at a distance. The man’s breathing increased rapidly as his hands made his way to his face where he began to scratch himself. Startled out of her distance, Zari manoeuvred herself so she could shuffle closer to John on her knees. Slowly, making sure he could see her hands at all times, Zari reached up to remove John’s own hands from his face.

“You can’t do that. You don’t want to ruin that pretty face of yours. Sorry, wrong time,” Zari kept rambling as she considered what to do. Her boyfriend was still in the midst of a panic attack and she never quite knew what these moments would bring. Spending most of her life online had led to far more insecurities than Zari would ever admit to but what she was willing to share on her channel was that she had suffered panic attacks before. Opening up had allowed her to become an advocate for speaking up about mental health and she’d even attempted an educational video on how to help someone suffering from anxiety or experiencing a panic attack. What she had failed to mention though, was that despite knowing what to do in the scenario, she froze up herself every time. John sat in front of her on the verge of a breakdown whilst Zari tried to recall what had helped him last time but these moments were never the same. In an uncommon moment of vulnerability, Zari had no idea how to help her boyfriend. She was definitely going to be watching her own video later.

Taking her out of her thoughts was John’s hand shooting out of her grip and reaching for her forearm. He opened his mouth to attempt speaking but something appeared to catch his eye and he began choking on air.

Zari took this as her cue to intervene and allowed for her own hands to grip John’s forearms whilst never removing his contact. “Okay, John, let’s start breathing again now yeah? I can’t have you passing out, the others will think I’ve poisoned you or something.” Zari went through breathing exercises with John for as long as it took for him to be able to continue doing so without her prompting. They sat holding each other together until Zari felt that he’d calmed down enough to speak. She knew what she was supposed to do here, keep him calm and talking. Don't frighten him any more than he was and don't attempt arguing with him if he doesn't believe he's hallucinating. If Zari stayed calm, John tended to follow along. 

Keeping her tone soft, Zari asked “John, can you see something? Is someone talking?” She watched his reaction closely and caught a slight nod. “Can you tell me about it?”

“I’ve done a lot of bad stuff, Love. I’ve hurt a lot of people. ‘Corse they want to make themselves known now they’re dead. I killed him, you know. I fuckin’ killed him, he can be bloody pissed if he wants to be.” John spoke shakily. His speech was vague and off but Zari knew better than to argue with him, she needed to keep him talking and assure him that whoever this dead person was, she couldn’t see or hear them.

They spoke for a further ten minutes before Zari thought to ask, “this man, John, can you still see him?” She received only a nod in response. “Okay, how about we move off the floor. It doesn’t take someone with my expertise to know that sitting in a pile of glass is terrible for your skin,” she added in an attempt to make him smile yet with a genuine fear that her legs were going to look like a cat had attacked her once she had a chance to look properly.

John kept hold of Zari’s hand as they stood up together, feeling only more weak and tired than he had before his attempt to sleep. Zari didn’t let go either as she scanned his body again briefly for any obvious cuts or bruises she might need to take care of. Seeing nothing that couldn’t be sorted in the morning, Zari reached for her phone and sat down on the bed with John.

Scrolling through Spotify, Zari found a playlist she had made after copious nights of research with John. The soft indie music was far from any punk John typically listened too, nor was it like the pop Zari found herself obsessed with. However, it did seem to offer a chance for John to breathe and block out whatever was happening around him. She clicked shuffle on the playlist and left her phone beside her.

Zari sat with her back pressed against the bed’s headrest as John lent on her. She could see the man’s eyes flicking across the room and lock onto the strange shadows that the dim light produced, but neither made a sound.

“I’m sorry love. I’m not right in the head, I can’t make them go away.” Zari felt her heart scream as John buried his head into her chest. 

She gently let herself stroke his hair as they sat together in the dim light. “That, John Constantine, is a horrible thing to say. I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it, you’re not crazy. Sure, you’re definitely ill-"

John interrupted her with a soft chuckle, "way to make me feel better there, Love.”

Zari hit his shoulder lightly. "Let me finish. You're definitely ill, but we can deal with that. We can do anything, John.”

Zari loved their relationship, but more importantly, she loved John. The times they spent in two separate worlds were never fun but it wasn’t going to change anything any time soon. She stayed with her boyfriend and enjoyed their moment of peace as the ship slept on, oblivious.


End file.
